The St.Petersburg Centre of Watch & Clock Restoration

Lev Isidorovich Nechaev
(1800-1861)

The prominent Russian clockmaker, continued the work of his famous predecessors, who were always preoccupied with the ideas of constructing various complicated "planet clocks" with a great many automatic devices – Nechaev created incredibly complicated construction of the pendulum clock. He started his working career at the age of 25 (having studied the craftsmanship at a clockmaker Shreder) in his home town of Yaroslavl. It was here that the celebrated astronomic clock came into being: it had one-week operation reserve (being wound, the clock did not cease operating), it was compensated with the pendulum temperature, with anchor operation of Gragam and a lot of automatic devices.

The contemporaries seem to give Nechaev high appraisal: he was awarded with a golden medal and 1 000 rubles. We can read in the issue of 1852 of the "Journal of People Educational Ministry" the description of the clock by a witness who got acquainted with the device:

"I was offered by Nechaev to come into the room, where the clock was placed in a still unadorned case. He opened the case, and on the large clock face, decorated with some bronze corners (the width is 11 vershoks, 15 vershoks high) and there appeared in front of me in the upper part of it the hole of a rainbow shape, and against its blue surface the metal discus of the Sun was moving unnoticeably, passing during the day a certain time as it is marked in the calendar, from the dawn to sunset. The length of this rainbow – shaped hole is reducing from season to season, in accordance with the reduction of the Sun day movement, with the help of little screens in the form of white clouds, rising unnoticeably and gradually to the top. In the middle of the face, apart from the hands - hour, minute and second, there are the hands for months and days of the week and the holes , the numbers in which show everything, what you can get to know from an academic calendar. As a matter of fact, nothing has being left aside; there is even a special indication which year it is now - a usual one or a leap-year, and the 29th of February appears in the hole all by itself".

And actually, besides showing the time the clock shows days, months, dates, the time of sunrise and sunset, it shows how long the day and night are, is the day become longer or shorter in minutes and seconds, as well as what year it is now - a leap-year or an ordinary one, with the calculating point from a leap-year. There is a special screen demonstrating the sunrise ad sunset - the Sun is depicted as a glimmering small circle. At dawn and sunset the musical box performs tunes based on popular songs. When Nechaev started the constructing of the watch he had hoped to do it in several years, but in fact he managed to fulfil the job only in 1854 - that is in 11 years. While he was creating his masterpiece he ran into some difficulties. For instance, the tools and the devices he had in his disposal were not enough for his purposes, and he had to make the tools and some special equipment by himself. ____________________________________________________

The complicated astronomic clock by Nechaev were delivered from Yaroslavl to Petersburg and put on display in the Hermitage. At present it is (in operating order) in the Naval museum in Saint-Petersburg.

The St.Petersburg Watch&Clock Atelier
The Centre of Watch&Clock Restoration
off. 36, Malodetskoselskiy pr.
St.Petersburg, 190013, Russia
phones: +7 (812) 703-17-56
+7 (812) 316-56-39
+7 (812) 911-02-71
mail@clockmaker.ru